Chesham and Amersham MP urges Government to fund high-risk hospital repairs
Repairs will cost over £44 million
Chesham & Amersham MP Sarah Green has called on the Government to provide urgent funding for NHS building repairs across Buckinghamshire.
Sarah said:
“The extent of the NHS’s high-risk repair backlog in Buckinghamshire is deeply concerning. “It is the Government’s duty to ensure that staff and patients are safe in our National Health Service. “The Chancellor must urgently provide the funds necessary to carry out these repairs. His plan to cut the NHS’ capital spending budget in real terms in two years’ time is dangerous to NHS staff, dangerous to patients, and quite simply wrong.”
Buckinghamshire faces the ninth highest repair backlog of all trusts in England with the House of Commons Library analysis finding that the total cost to complete the “high-risk” infrastructure repairs is over £44 million.
“high-risk” repairs are those which “must be addressed with urgent priority in order to prevent catastrophic failure, major disruption to clinical services or deficiencies in safety liable to cause serious injury or prosecution”.
The total cost of tackling Buckinghamshire’s health infrastructure backlog comes to over £178 million.
Current Government plans mean repairs and long-promised new hospitals will further be delayed or cancelled as the health capital spending budget faces a significant real-terms cuts in two years’ time.